http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/03/31/computer-games-heart-of-the-humanities/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/03/31/computer-games-heart-of-the-humanities/comment-page-1/#comment-81548 Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:22:58 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=8840#comment-81548 I think you can make the case that the study of computer games fit squarely in one of the longest standing places within the humanities and also the one that the study has been most uncomfortable with: taking seriously the playful qualities of the tools available to us as humans. Just to give one quick example, the sophists were actively engaging in the playful manipulation of the tenuous relationship between language and meaning long before people had any “post-” to apply the project. Moreover, they were doing this in direct opposition to the people who were engaged in taking the words incredibly seriously (and who saw those words as the path to overarching Truth. It seems that games are rather well situated to take up that project of exploring the playfulness of the tools available to humans without the need to argue that those tools should be understood as play. Of course, this does not mean that games studies also bypasses the oppositional forces who demand serious study of serious subjects, but at the very least it seems that games can appeal to a long history of exploring the fragile, playful nature of humanity’s tools of communication as the charge to look directly at how tools of play are made manifest in contemporary settings.

]]> http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/03/31/computer-games-heart-of-the-humanities/comment-page-1/#comment-80169 Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:57:04 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=8840#comment-80169 I think one fear that comes out of Humanities studying Video Games is fear of not being taken seriously. As a Classics Major (Greek and Roman studies) I already have to face some criticism from the world at large about “Well what good is that?”. If I started studying video games, some people might be a bit jealous because I get to “play” all the time, but a lot of people would mock me even louder. This becomes especially difficult if a department is struggling to be taken seriously among all the science classes.

]]> http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/03/31/computer-games-heart-of-the-humanities/comment-page-1/#comment-79553 Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:14:18 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=8840#comment-79553 Just a quick note that Mia Consalvo gave a talk with similar themes at GDC this year, entitled “Humanities Unlocked: The Value of Liberal Arts For Your Game Design Program.” Her slides are available at gdcvault.com, or on slideshare here — http://www.slideshare.net/miaconsalvo/humanities-unlocked-the-value-of-liberal-arts-for-your-game-design-program

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